Anki is targeting early adopters via a Kickstarter campaign that ends on September 30, and offers early customers a 20 percent discount on the $249 price tag.
Cozmo robot came two years back, and now its creators, US-based robotics and artificial intelligence company Anki is all set to launch Cozmo’s Big brother, a robot designed for the home, named 'Vector'.
Vector is a compact robot that can practically fit into your palm, and can be carried around in your pocket. The official price of Vector has been set at $249 on launch.
While Cozmo was more like a friendly toy with cameras and sensors, and worked through a smartphone connection, ‘Vector’ is a smarter, more intelligent robot that doesn't need a connection to a device.
As reported by Mashable, for the launch of Vector, Anki is adopting a different approach, by targeting early adopters via Kickstarter. A 30-day campaign has been designed, which ends on September 30, and offers early customers a 20 percent discount on the $249 price tag. Early access to the SDK is another advantage of this campaign, and the robot will ship three days before the official launch on October 12, for the early buyers.
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Coming to its features, Vector can detect your face, answer questions and also play games, apart from providing weather updates, control smart home devices, identify people and it comes with an in-built 120-degree HD camera and sensors.
On the hardware front, Vector has a boatload of hardware inside including a 1.2GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, WiFi 802.11n, Bluetooth LE, touch sensitivity on the top and bottom, a NIR LASER scanner on the front, a camera, and a four-mic array. It also has a battery inside that enables auto-on capabilities — in fact, Vector will automatically park itself in its charging dock when it's running low.
Thanks to the sensors driving its emotion engine, Vector can actually feel emotions. So if you cheat, while playing a game, chances are Vector may really get angry.